Food policy experts say COVID-19 has provided a window to transform Canada’s food production system to a more sustainable model.

A report from Food Secure Canada, an alliance of organizations working to advance food security, said Canada shouldn’t return to the industrial food production model that has been slowed by the novel coronavirus. Instead, Food Secure Canada executive director Gisèle Yasmeen said, governments should invest in existing local infrastructures that can help Canada meet environmental and social goals while boosting the economy post-COVID-19.

“This is the time, now, to look at the food system,” she said in an interview with iPolitics on Friday. “The writing is on the wall in food production.”

Yasmeen said local food systems built over the past few decades are already using the COVID-19 opening to develop further, and the government should be investing in these types of food hubs. She said a focus on local production will get people back to work, while stimulating the economy “in the right way” to “meet a number of objectives.”

She pointed to the program lunchLAB in B.C., through which non-profit groups Fresh Roots and Growing Chefs are providing more than 5,000 meals to 260 families each week in the wake of COVID-19 school closures.

“That can and should be made a permanent thing,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential to build up what’s already happening on the ground.”

The report also said challenges of the industrial food system have been front-page news in recent months, with COVID-19 exposing the “fragility and concentration of power” in Canada’s dominant long-distance food supply chain.

The Senate met today to pass Bill C-16, which was adopted by the House on Wednesday. It would boost the borrowing capacity of the Canadian Dairy Commission to $500 million from $300 million. The government plans to use the extra leeway to buy excess butter and cheese that producers have had to carry due to disruptions in normal demand because of the pandemic.

There were four House committees meeting today to discuss the government’s response to the pandemic, including an Agriculture Committee meeting, where members heard from witnesses like the United Potato Growers of Canada and the Canadian Horticultural Council.

In Canada

The deadline to purchase calf price insurance from Western Livestock Price Insurance has been extended beyond May 28 to June 18 due to ever-changing circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The extension gives producers an additional three weeks to monitor premiums and purchase calf price insurance policies, reports Lethbridge News Now.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday urged people to “buy Canadian” as domestic food producers feel the strain of global restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan also made the call for Canadians to buy domestic in a briefing shortly afterwards, specifically urging people to buy domestic fish and seafood.

“Canadian harvesters are resilient and determined, and today, I am urging Canadians to show their support by purchasing more of our high-quality, sustainably sourced products at your local grocer,” she said. Global News has more.

Internationally

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has a US$3-billion plan to distribute food to families, called the Farmers to Family Food Box Program. Under the program, the federal government will pay farmers to box up fresh produce, dairy and meat — food many have had to dispose of because of disruptions in the market — and supply it to places like food banks.

“When you have the shutdown very suddenly of institutional food settings such as restaurants, schools, colleges and others, then that causes a misalignment in supply,” Perdue told NPR’s Morning Edition. “And we’ve had to scramble in order to try to readjust that, and this food box program is one of those things which we’ve tried to do.”

Cattle producers agree better price discovery is needed in cattle markets — where the four largest meatpackers control more than 80 per cent of U.S. cattle slaughter and processing — but they aren’t aligned on how to achieve it. A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this week requiring packers to purchase a minimum of 50 per cent of their cattle through cash markets is pushing the conversation. The mandate would apply to packers with more than one processing plant and require the cattle be harvested within 14 days, according to the Capital Press.